Month: January 2020

Brain, Health, Living, Psychology, Sex1 Comment

Guided Solo Practices for Increasing Pleasure

Fernando Kaskais

By Isabella Frappier Sometimes sex education starts with yourself, as sexuality doula Isabella Frappier points out in the third episode of The goop Lab on Netflix: “The Pleasure Is Ours.” Frappier, who is based in Los Angeles, leads workshops and one-on-ones to help people build intimacy and increase sexual pleasure. And pleasure, she says, starts within. When people come to her with questions about their sex lives, she helps them explore their own sensuality through guided practices and uses her own intuitive wisdom to help people discover what satisfies them. We love the advice she gave us about sexual blocks in part because none … Continue reading Guided Solo Practices for Increasing Pleasure

Big Pharma, Conspiracy, Curiositys, Health, ManipulationLeave a comment

IS THE NEW ‘DEADLY CHINA VIRUS’ A COVERT OPERATION?

Fernando Kaskais

by Jon Rappoport, Guest Waking Times NEW VIRUS IN CHINA. WATCH OUT. SPREADING. ANIMALS TO HUMANS? PANDEMIC COMING UP? OBEY MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. ALL HANDS ON DECK. CENTERED IN WUHAN. CITY OF 11 MILLION. WILL THEY QUARANTINE AND SHUT DOWN HONG KONG? TRAVELERS WITH THE VIRUS GETTING THROUGH TO EUROPE AND AMERICA? WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE VIRUS? 2019-nCOV or nCoV2019. WHAT? THANK GOD THE CHINESE ARE UNDER A TIGHT DICTATORSHIP, THEY CAN CRACK DOWN AND QUARANTINE ANYBODY ON A WHIM. IF YOUR BODY TEMPERATURE IS ELEVATED ON A TEST, THEY STOP YOU? WOW. WE MAY NEED THAT IN THE USA, AS … Continue reading IS THE NEW ‘DEADLY CHINA VIRUS’ A COVERT OPERATION?

Curiositys, Health, Living, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

When Exercise Comes to the Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit

Fernando Kaskais

Even short hospital ICU stays can cause lasting problems for patients. Can early mobility and exercise help? BY AMITHA KALAICHANDRAN SAPNA KUDCHADKAR still remembers the morning in 2010 that shaped the trajectory of her scientific research. She was in the midst of a medical fellowship, listening carefully to the hospital’s overnight staff, as they summarized the progress of each child in the pediatric intensive care unit. The staff would comment on how well the patients had slept the night before. “In that moment, I realized that we weren’t really talking about sleep, per se, but really sedation,” says Kudchadkar. While the terms … Continue reading When Exercise Comes to the Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit

Curiositys, Drugs, Health, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

Can psychedelics help treat pain?

Fernando Kaskais

Forthcoming Phase II trials with ibogaine aim to find out. by Derek Beres  “Fun Guy” a psilocybin mushroom grower holding a Hawaiian psilocybin mushroom he has harvested to collect spoors May 14, 2019 in Denver, Colorado.Photo by Joe Amon/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images Pharmacology professor Richard J. Miller is hopeful for the resurgence in clinical studies of psychedelics. Ibogaine, used in France for decades, is making a comeback in potentially helping curb addiction and treat pain. Psychedelics were deemed illegal for political and not medical reasons, an error we are reinvestigating. With all the hype regarding the potential … Continue reading Can psychedelics help treat pain?

Art, Eco, Literature, Media&Culture, PhilosophyLeave a comment

Calculating the Incalculable: Thoreau on the True Value of a Tree

Fernando Kaskais

“What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?” BY MARIA POPOVA More than two years after a fire started by a teenage boy destroyed 47,000 acres of old-growth forest in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, having just resolved to face the new year like a tree, I found myself on the brink of tears before the blackened trunk of an ancient ponderosa pine as I walked the sylvan scar tissue of the tragedy. A conversation with my hiking companion — a dear friend currently working with the Navajo Nation on preserving and learning from their own ecological inheritance — led … Continue reading Calculating the Incalculable: Thoreau on the True Value of a Tree

Curiositys, Esoteric, Hypocrisy, Living, PsychologyLeave a comment

THE DUDES WHO USE ASTROLOGY TO JUSTIFY THEIR BREAKUPS

Fernando Kaskais

by Hussein Kesvani  Maybe the incompatible signs are to blame — or maybe it’s just an excuse Christine, a pseudonymous 28-year-old clerk at a law firm in Dublin, isn’t convinced that her ex-boyfriend Steve, who ended their five-year relationship in November, knows the difference between Aries and Aquarius. “He definitely doesn’t understand what a rising sun is, or what’s meant by a planet going into a [zodiac] sign,” she tells me with a sigh. What’s more, Christine, a believer in all things astrology, had patiently tried to talk to Steve about the value of astrology, that “even if he couldn’t get his … Continue reading THE DUDES WHO USE ASTROLOGY TO JUSTIFY THEIR BREAKUPS

Brain, Health, Living, PsychologyLeave a comment

Concentrate!

Fernando Kaskais

The challenge of chess – learning how to hold complexity in mind and still make good decisions – is also the challenge of life Jonathan Rowson is the co-founder and director of Perspectiva, a research institute in London. He is the author of The Moves that Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life (2019). Listen here Edited by Marina Benjamin Arriving at the chess board is like entering an eagerly anticipated party. All my old friends are there: the royal couple, their associates, the reassuringly straight lines of noble infantry. I adjust them, ensuring that they are optimally located in the centre … Continue reading Concentrate!

Future, History, Literature, Media&Culture, PhilosophyLeave a comment

William Gibson on writing sci-fi as the world takes a dystopian dive

Fernando Kaskais

By SUMIT PAUL-CHOUDHURY In the “stub” inhabited by Agency’s protagonist, Americans didn’t vote Trump into office and Brits didn’t vote for Brexit. It’s not without its troubles, though: nuclear tensions in the Middle East are threatening to set off a global conflagration Is ours the darkest timeline? William Gibson thinks it might be. Gibson’s last book, The Peripheral, introduced the “Jackpot”, a cascade of global catastrophes that wipes out much of the human race, along with an ingenious take on time travel that allows digital communication – including telepresence – across alternate timelines. Its central character, Wilf, lives in post-Jackpot London: he becomes … Continue reading William Gibson on writing sci-fi as the world takes a dystopian dive

Brain, Curiositys, Health, Music, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

The Neuroscience of Drumming: Researchers Discover the Secrets of Drumming & The Human Brain

Fernando Kaskais

by Josh Jones An old musician’s joke goes “there are three kinds of drummers in the world—those who can count and those who can’t.” But perhaps there is an even more global divide. Perhaps there are three kinds of people in the world—those who can drum and those who can’t. Perhaps, as the promotional video above from GE suggests, drummers have fundamentally different brains than the rest of us. Today we highlight the scientific research into drummers’ brains, an expanding area of neuroscience and psychology that disproves a host of dumb drummer jokes. “Drummers,” writes Jordan Taylor Sloan at Mic, “can actually be … Continue reading The Neuroscience of Drumming: Researchers Discover the Secrets of Drumming & The Human Brain

Art, Curiositys, History, Media&CultureLeave a comment

Did Walt Disney Influence Stanley Kubrick’s 2001?

Fernando Kaskais

Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) offers some of the most realistic space photography in cinema history. To mention Kubrick’s manic attention to detail to every component of filmmaking is nothing new, but I’ve come across a 1955 TV program that might prove to be the most influential to the look and feel of his sci-fi stunner. It is often noted that the two films that inspired Kubrick during the preproduction of 2001 were the National Film Board of Canada’s 1960 animated documentary Universe (1960) and the 1964 New York World’s Fair movie To the Moon and Beyond. Douglas Trumbull was … Continue reading Did Walt Disney Influence Stanley Kubrick’s 2001?